


1886

by Annux



Series: Impressions [1]
Category: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance, Set between Watchmaker and Pepperharrow, Tenderness but make it filthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:39:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23952436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annux/pseuds/Annux
Summary: It's 1886 and they still haven't talked about it.
Relationships: Keita Mori/Thaniel Steepleton
Series: Impressions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726768
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	1886

It was near midnight when Thaniel finally heard the light tread of Mori’s feet on the stairs. The ocassional sounds of Six moving around her attic room had faded hours ago, and even before that Thaniel had been posted in the armchair beside his bed, a worn English-Japanese dictionary in his lap. Now he closed it, not bothering to pretend he hadn’t been waiting. He heard Mori’s bedroom door click open and shut and made himself wait several minutes more before rising.

Thaniel knew the creaky spots on the landing and avoided them with efficiency. Six was a deep sleeper, but there was no reason to tempt fate, even if Mori would see her coming long before she stumbled into anything untoward. He knocked quietly, trusting that Mori would be expecting him. He always was.

He looked tired when he opened the door, but smiled at Thaniel without artifice; he was in the process of undressing for bed, his waistcoat hanging open, silk tie held in one hand. Mori’s hair had been growing long, with only the barest hint of blond left at the tips, and Thaniel privately liked how the framing softened his sharp face. He wanted to reach out and touch it; instead he stepped inside and swung the door shut behind him.

“She’ll likely sleep until well past sunrise,” Mori told him, then grimaced at himself. Thaniel had been about to ask about Six.

“The two of you had an eventful evening, then?” he asked, as if nothing unusual had happened. Mori was embarrassed by his lapses, but after years of tenancy they barely fazed Thaniel at all. He leaned back against the door, watching as Mori set down his tie, neatly folded, and started carefully loosening his cufflinks. He suddenly felt shy. Mori’s room was smaller than his own and scrupulously tidy, and he was awkwardly aware of how much space he took up.

“Me, not at all. She went outside after dinner and came back covered in soot. I’m sure you heard the Haverly boys shouting.” Mori’s lip twitched. “Another victory, I’m told.”

“And you had no part in any of it, of course.” Thaniel made a mental note to cajole Six into a bath tomorrow. She disliked getting wet, but was willing to be bargained with under certain circumstances.

“None,” said Mori innocently. His eyes glinted in the lamplight. Then his expression changed, though Thaniel couldn’t quite say how. He sounded almost perfectly nonchalant when he said, “You went upstairs early.”

Thaniel hesitated. It was rare for Mori to question his behavior, and it left him feeling wrongfooted. In truth, he had spent the evening adrift, staring through the English-Japanese dictionary as he considered, for what felt like the thousandth time since moving into Filigree Street, concepts far more challenging than a second language. Mori had lately taken up like a ghost in unexpected corners of his mind. Most nights, Thaniel composed music or studied Japanese in the workshop while Mori coaxed marvelous anachronisms into existence; when prompted, Mori offered insightful feedback or clarification on his work. Thaniel looked forward to these peaceful twilight hours during long shifts at the Home Office, but tonight it would have been too unnerving to sit across from a clairvoyant while his thoughts lingered so stubbornly on topics which politeness obliged him to keep private.

His mind ticked like clockwork to his wedding night, the first time he tapped on Mori’s bedroom door. Mori had been fully dressed when it opened, his eyes shadowed and unreadable, but his hands had trembled as they reached for Thaniel’s. Thaniel hadn’t known if it was due to nerves, desire, or something else entirely, and had felt the kindest course of action was to pretend he didn’t notice. Or perhaps he had simply been preoccupied with concealing the tremble in his own hands.

Mori was still watching him, waiting for an answer. His fingers had paused on the button at his throat. Thaniel could see his expression starting to close off, so he stepped farther into the room, shoving down his awkwardness and the old fear that rose when he wondered if this might finally be the time Mori turned him away.

“I slept badly last night.” It wasn’t a lie; for all that he left unsaid, Thaniel hated lying to him. He avoided it, as a rule, since his divorce. “I should have helped put Six to bed, I’m sorry.”

“You know she prefers to put herself to bed.” Thaniel did know. But Mori was nothing if not gracious, and he never pushed Thaniel very hard. A few seconds later his face was already regaining its familiar enigmatic distance.

Thaniel frowned. “Don’t do that.”

Mori tilted his head as if to say, _Don’t do what?_ Thaniel couldn’t decide if he should feel frustrated or grateful. He was being evasive himself, so he supposed he could hardly begrudge the deflection. He raised his hand to Mori’s cheek, wanting to keep him there, and was relieved when Mori turned his face into his palm.

“You’re here now,” he said conciliatorily, his words tickling the inside of Thaniel’s wrist.

“I am.”

Thaniel drew him closer and looked down at him for a long moment. Mori met his eyes unselfconsciously; his gaze travelled down to Thaniel’s lips, then back up, but otherwise he was completely motionless. Thaniel took a fortifying breath. At last, he allowed himself to tangle a hand in Mori’s dark hair. He bowed his head until their noses brushed, and admired the way Mori’s eyelashes fluttered when his eyes fell shut.

“Thaniel,” Mori reproached.

This was what he’d been waiting for, what he was always waiting for; proof that Mori still wanted him. He bridged the last few centimeters between them, letting his uncertainty fall to the wayside. Mori’s arms came up around his neck, pressing their bodies together, his mouth soft. Thaniel leaned into him like the sun.

Mori’s lips moved slowly and precisely, as if he meant to relay some terribly important message without words. Thaniel, who took important messages professionally for the British government, felt equipped as neither telegraphist nor translator to decipher what Mori might wish to tell him. Instead he untucked Mori’s starched white shirt and slid a palm up over his ribs. Mori sank into the touch, his bare skin shockingly warm.

“I’ve been trying to take that off for a while,” he said against Thaniel’s mouth. His hands smoothed across the front of Thaniel’s jumper, drawn to the thundering heartbeat underneath.

“Let me help,” Thaniel suggested.

Mori chased his lips for just a moment when he pulled away, and Thaniel felt a shimmering ember flare up in his belly. Mori’s shirt and waistcoat hit the floor, followed directly by his jumper. He caught Mori by the waist and pulled him close again.

The next kiss was less delicate. Mori gripped his biceps and rose up to meet him, parting his lips invitingly. Thaniel could taste the green tea he’d drunk earlier. He breathed him in, thrilling at the rasp of his stubble against Mori’s rough cheek, and began guiding him back toward the bed. Mori kissed him with purpose and allowed himself to be led.

He stopped before Mori’s legs hit the mattress. “So polite,” Mori observed.

Thaniel flushed. Mori bruised easily, and he still bristled with rage when he remembered how he’d come by that knowledge. Those particular policemen were lucky they had never crossed his path again.

Rather than answering, he spun them around and toppled back, tugging Mori down after him. Mori braced one forearm against his broad chest and the other beside his head. His hair fell around them like a curtain when he laughed and dropped a kiss at the corner of Thaniel’s mouth.

“Your feet are still on the floor,” Mori informed him.

“So they are.” He was distracted by Mori’s crow’s feet, which always deepened when he laughed. He kissed his jaw, then his smiling mouth, wondering what he’d been like at Thaniel’s age. Then Mori shifted very deliberately above him, and his focus sharpened on the present once more. Heat rose in his cheeks and coloured his chest when Mori’s damp breath caressed his ear.

“Up,” Mori whispered hotly. A second later he was gone, scaling the bed to arrange himself against the wooden headboard. Thaniel climbed after him. Mori’s braces were still clipped to his trousers, hanging loose around his narrow hips; Thaniel looped them twice around his hands and used them to drag him back down the mattress. He floundered, indignant, then subsided when Thaniel loomed over him.

“I thought you were being polite,” said Mori.

“I was.” He raked his eyes over Mori’s body, snagging on the soft hair that crept down his belly. There was no reason not to touch it, so he did, and was gratified when Mori’s breath hitched. He swept his hand up across Mori’s thinly-furred chest until it came to rest lightly on his throat. The pulse there fluttered furiously. Mori lifted his chin, suddenly seeming very young indeed.

Thaniel wanted so many things at once that he was momentarily at a loss for what to do next. Mori’s eyes fixed upon his face, eaten away by black, and abruptly Thaniel saw that he didn’t know what Thaniel would do next either. The realisation sent fresh heat blazing through him. His hand reversed its course until his fingertips laid just beneath the band of Mori’s trousers.

“Baron Mori,” he said with astounding composure. “Will you do me the honour of removing these?”

Mori looked torn between laughter and embarrassment. “Don’t call me that.”

He dipped down to press his face into Mori’s neck, his bravado evaporating. “Kei,” he appealed against the delicate skin there. Mori smelled of lemon soap and the strange incense that always clung to him after he’d been soldering.

“Yes, I will, you menace. Take yours off too.”

Thaniel obeyed. The ankle-length drawers he wore to sleep joined the rest of their things on the floor, and when he turned back Mori was bare against the crisp white sheets.

The sight of him, supine and exposed, caught Thaniel up short. He was a small man composed of slim, elegant lines; when he stretched, the bones of his hips cut sharply against his skin. His hair spilled inklike across the pillow, framing his face in a nimbus of gold-trimmed shadow, and his expression was dark and hooded. If Mori had misgivings about taking Thaniel to bed, he never showed them. He was always just like this; attentive, sure, and sweetly deferential, even when Thaniel was the one flat on his back. He felt a potent mixture of protectiveness and implacable desire filling him to the brim.

Mori held out a hand. Thaniel unfroze and descended, crowding Mori’s body down into the mattress with his own. He sought out Mori’s lips, then gasped into his open mouth when Mori slid a knee up between his thighs. He pushed closer; his skin seared where they touched, locked together from knee to chest, and his heart raced wildly. The man arching up agreeably beneath him, against him, was the only thing that mattered in the world.

Mori continued kissing him, messier now, both hands anchored on Thaniel’s face. Thaniel loved being kissed, loved that Mori seemed to so enjoy kissing him. He stroked Mori’s ribs and closed his eyes as Mori’s tongue slipped past his teeth. On the blank canvas of his eyelids, he saw a tiny burst of gold to accompany each exhale warming his lips. Thaniel smiled. He had barely touched him yet, but there was already a tremor in Mori’s breath. He opened his eyes to find Mori regarding him through his lashes.

“You’re... thinking very loudly,” he explained, sounding faintly abashed but resolved not to care, and Thaniel noted the tint of his cheeks with enormous satisfaction.

“What am I thinking about?” Thaniel whispered. He turned his mind to just what he meant to do, keeping his eyes trained on Mori’s face as they both watched the future unfurl.

Mori twisted his face into the pillow. “Don’t tease,” he said, and Thaniel could hardly deny him anything. He shifted slowly downward, catching Mori’s hand as he went. Mori’s strong fingers laced through his.

Thaniel dragged his lips across Mori’s chest, his tongue peeking out to taste the salt of skin and clean sweat. He scraped tenderly over Mori’s heart with his teeth and imagined marking him there. No one else would know, under all his threadbare layers, but Thaniel would. Mori would. He moved on with only a whisper of regret, pausing to wet a tight brown nipple. Mori made a sound low in his throat. Lingering over the ticklish fuzz of his stomach evoked a laugh, just as it always did, and Thaniel smiled again into his hip.

When he reached his true destination, Mori’s free hand fisted in the sheets. Thaniel hovered, letting him feel his breath, and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the crease of his thigh. Sinew tightened under skin. He wanted to draw this out, savor it, but Mori was as taut as a piano string, struggling to keep still. It would be unthinkable to make him wait.

He cried out when Thaniel’s mouth slid around him. The hand that gripped the sheets disappeared from Thaniel’s view, presumably to stifle the sound, and the one interlocked with his held tighter. Thaniel squeezed back. He sank deeper, burying his nose in silky black hair. The weight felt good on his tongue, velvety smooth and comfortably familiar. He hollowed his cheeks and swallowed.

Easing back, he could see Mori staring down at him, hand clamped across his mouth. He reached up and guided the hand to his hair.

“The neighbours,” said Mori, his gaze flickering to the hearth. Their flue connected with the Haverlys’ next door.

“They’re asleep,” said Thaniel. If they weren’t, he didn’t care what they heard just now. They could think what they wanted.

He resumed his task with languorous resolve, and Mori didn’t argue. His fingers combed through Thaniel’s pale hair, never pulling, only touching. His thumb swept down to trace Thaniel’s lips while he sucked. The lightest imaginable touch feathered over his eyelids, anointing him with the oils of Mori’s fingertips.

Thaniel’s heart constricted at the intimacy of the gesture. It made him feel terribly vulnerable, as if Mori really could see his thoughts and not just his intentions. But if he wanted to know how Thaniel felt, surely he would ask.

A pleasant ache built in his jaw. It was a luxury to have Mori like this, in a way no one else could lay claim to; the ache reminded him it was real. Mori, so measured when facing the world, was panting and shuddering now because of him. Thaniel worked him over with something like reverence. He palmed the inside of Mori’s thigh, spreading his legs wider. Mori squeezed his hand again. He followed Thaniel’s touch, silently asking for things he had never asked for aloud.

Thaniel never made him ask for anything.

He sucked harder, moving with steady purpose. Mori’s hips, always still without having to be held, twitched. The slip in his control tore a muffled moan from Thaniel’s chest. Mori echoed the sound and arched so far that he was sitting up, curled over Thaniel like an ellipse; his hand tightened in Thaniel’s hair, tugging him gently but firmly back.

It was a clear command. With tremendous reluctance, he allowed Mori to fall from his lips. His disappointment only lasted a moment; Mori drew him up for an urgent kiss, tasting himself on Thaniel’s tongue. He pressed their foreheads together, his eyes glued to Thaniel’s mouth.

“You have to stop,” Mori rasped. “We have… other things to do.”

“Oh?”

His eyes cut to the bedside table. “Oh,” Thaniel repeated.

He hid his face in Mori’s shoulder, trying to catch his breath. Mori stroked the nape of his neck. In the top drawer, behind a leather notebook and a box of pencils, was a small bottle of oil. Thaniel had no notion of where it came from or how it replenished, but it was always in that same spot, filled to the stopper. The thought of it made him shiver. If that was what Mori wanted tonight, Thaniel was more than willing.

Retrieving the oil meant leaving the harbour of Mori’s arms. He kissed his shoulder before rising, conscious of being watched; Mori tracked his movements with a precision that was equal parts hunger, fondness, and something unnameable. The full force of his attention was overwhelming. Thaniel fished for the bottle, feeling clumsy and feverish.

The glass was cool against his palm. Mori reeled him back in, twining around him, his cheek flat to Thaniel’s chest. Thaniel slipped an arm around his waist and held him.

“Do you want me to…?” he asked the crown of Mori’s head.

“Yes. Please.” The reply ruffled the hair on his chest.

He laid Mori back against the pillows and kissed him thoroughly before retreating to kneel at his side. His hand slid between Mori’s thighs.

“Spread your legs,” he said roughly, and Mori did. Thaniel’s breath snagged. It seemed impossible that Mori could want him like this, yet here he was, pressing into Thaniel’s touch. He caressed him with dry fingertips, remembering his way.

Sometimes Mori preferred to do this part himself, but Thaniel liked coaxing him open almost as much as what came after. He unstoppered the bottle and painted two fingers with oil. It was cold, and Mori jumped a little at the return of his hand, slowly circling. The hand stilled.

“You’re teasing again,” Mori told him.

Thaniel bent to kiss his stomach in apology. “I’m not,” he said, and began working a careful fingertip inside him.

Mori’s inner walls were hot and soft, clenching and fluttering around him as he eased in past the knuckle. Mori grasped his knee and held on. He stared at Thaniel’s lap, where he was desperately hard and dripping; if Mori had somehow gone this far without noticing how much Thaniel wanted him, it was undeniable now. Thaniel slid his finger deep and held it still, waiting for Mori to give assent.

“I can take the other,” he said at length, and a second oiled digit joined the first. Mori bit his lip. He bore down on Thaniel’s fingers, then gasped when they curled inside him.

“There?” Thaniel asked, because he wanted to hear the answer.

Mori threw his head back. “Yes.”

He rubbed smooth circles into the spot, admiring the way Mori’s mouth fell open when he applied pressure. Mori’s composure was well and truly cracked; he lifted his hips to meet each stroke, chest heaving, sleek hair hopelessly mussed. He was beautiful, Thaniel thought fiercely. He was achingly, radiantly, terrifyingly beautiful.

Thaniel could go on like this forever. The idea of pursuing his own pleasure lived somewhere in the future; at present, all he could think of was feeling Mori unravel on his fingers. Without ceasing the movement of his hand, he shifted up the bed to snag Mori’s lower lip in his teeth. Mori followed his mouth. His kiss was sweet and searching despite the tension in his body, and Thaniel tried to transpose the things he wasn’t sure how to say.

Warm hands roamed over his flank, sending sparks fizzling along his nerves. They meandered around his waist, up his back, drawing him close. Thaniel would go wherever those hands put him. He bit into Mori’s throat, crooking his fingers. Fire licked across his skin.

“Thaniel, Thaniel, _Thaniel_ ,” rasped Mori in his honey-gold voice.

“Keita?”

“ _Kimi ga hoshii._ ”

He confessed it like the most intimate of secrets, with startling familiarity. _I want you._ The words seemed to eat up all the air in the room; Thaniel whimpered against the shell of his ear, desperate to believe it. Lips grazed his cheek. A hand closed around his wrist, and Mori guided Thaniel’s fingers out of him with a steady, decisive grip.

“Shi haana tano mono,” Thaniel promised breathlessly. _You have me._

He settled over Mori with a fluency born of practice. Several years and many more nights had shown him just how Mori liked to be touched, and even the frenzied rhythm of his own heart couldn’t break his focus as he swept through the sheets for the oil. Not when Mori was looking at him like that. He lit upon the bottle and reached down to prepare himself.

Mori stopped him. He upended the bottle into his own palm, where the oil formed a glistening pool, before making a fist.

“It’s going to get everywhere,” Thaniel protested.

“It’s cold,” Mori countered, serious in spite of his flushed dishevelment, and Thaniel laughed.

His laughter became a moan when Mori took him in hand. His hips nudged forward of their own accord; the oil was now the same temperature as Mori’s skin, and Mori had had just as many nights to learn how to touch him. The arousal blurring his edges surged to the forefront. Mori prepared him with a lingering hand, then led him between his legs.

When Thaniel pressed into him, the wet heat of Mori’s body eclipsed all other sensation. His arms shook. Mori’s legs came up around his waist, tightening until Thaniel was deep inside him; he arched his back, heels digging into Thaniel’s spine, and kissed him hard.

Thaniel melted against his lips. His hips rocked in shallow circles, only able to pull back as far as Mori’s legs allowed. Mori seemed unwilling to permit more than a sliver of distance between them; his thighs were viselike and his hands clung to Thaniel’s shoulder blades. Thaniel didn’t mind. He cradled Mori’s cheek and took what was given.

Mori met each roll of his hips with undisguised need, gradually loosening the vise just enough for Thaniel to pull back properly. They both gasped when he thrust forward again. The hands at Thaniel’s back scrabbled frantically, gathering him in, though Mori’s fingernails never bit deep enough to leave a mark. Thaniel wished they would. He intended to say so, too far gone to consider shame, and felt an animal sound rip out of him when parallel tracks of pain tore down his back on the next thrust.

He curled into the pain. There would be evidence, now. He would twist around tomorrow morning before his shaving mirror, and Mori’s touch would be rended into his skin like a maker’s mark. Thaniel buried his face against Mori’s throat. He rocked into him with growing desperation, sucking at the pulse point beneath his lips, mindful to keep his mouth light. Mori wasn’t his the way he was Mori’s. At times like this, however, it was tempting to forget.

One of Mori’s hands came up to cup Thaniel’s skull, threading through his hair. He began whispering in Thaniel’s ear.

“You feel so good,” he said in Japanese. Thaniel scrambled to translate without breaking rhythm. “You know _exactly_ where to touch me. When you move like that - _like that_ \- it feels…” Thaniel wasn’t familiar with the next turn of phrase, but the timbre of Mori’s voice made his meaning clear enough. Mori kept talking, generous praise punctuated by hoarse cries, and Thaniel noted distantly that the bedframe was thumping against the wall. Someone ought to do something about that.

Many of the cries were his own, he realised. The blaze steadily consuming him roared higher each time Mori’s legs clenched around his waist, and the golden whisper licking into his ear and around his heart burned brightest of all. He drove Mori into the mattress with the conviction of a man possessed as Mori held him tight and close.

Forming sentences was a near-Herculean effort. “You feel good too,” he gasped when Mori’s compliments trailed into laboured panting. Mori’s thighs trembled tellingly, and he brought Thaniel’s face to his.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

His eyes were wide and dark, as vast as the night sky, and his breath rushed jaggedly past Thaniel’s cheek. Thaniel matched his gaze with a raw intensity he couldn’t have masked if he tried. A full-body shudder was the final warning before Mori fell apart; his mouth went slack, fingernails digging in again, dragging Thaniel after him.

There was no greater privilege than holding Mori together when he broke. He convulsed in Thaniel’s arms, tensing almost painfully around him. White drops pearled across his belly. Thaniel’s barely-controlled blaze swelled to a crescendo, and he spilled inside Mori with his eyes fixed on Mori’s face and both hands tangled in his hair.

Thaniel bowed over him, weight balanced on his elbows, shivering pleasantly. Heat thrummed through his body. His hips moved throughout, deep and slow; Mori quivered in the sheltering confines of his embrace. He pressed their cheeks together, slick with perspiration.

Thaniel held him that way for as long as he dared. The legs bracketing his waist stayed in place until Mori’s breath evened out, and when they finally fell away, Thaniel had gone soft inside him. He stole a chaste kiss before drawing back.

Mori was endearingly bleary and creased. He shuffled, arranging himself in the bedding, and extended an artless hand. Thaniel knew he should find a washcloth before they both grew sticky and uncomfortable, but he rested his head on Mori’s chest instead. This was his favourite part; the abiding stretch of tenderness in the aftermath. He could listen to Mori’s heartbeat until the sun rose, lulled into serenity by the hand sweeping down his ribcage and back up.

It was Mori who eventually shrugged into Thaniel’s discarded jumper, which hung at mid-thigh and revealed only his fingertips, to fetch a damp towel. His face pinched when he examined the scratches on Thaniel’s back. He dabbed at them with concern, and the torn skin flared hot.

“Don’t look like that,” said Thaniel. “I liked it.”

Mori eyed him appraisingly. “Would you tell me if you didn’t?”

“Yes.” He tried to make his sincerity as plain as possible.

Mori’s scrutiny lasted a moment longer; then he resumed cleaning the scrapes. He said nothing more, but Thaniel felt the ghost of his lips beside each burning line.

He fell asleep that night with Mori’s back flush to his chest, an arm looped possessively around his waist, so that the scent of Mori’s hair drifted through his dreams. In the morning he would creep out of bed to fill the kettle and make breakfast. He would run water for Six’s bath, and greet Mori at the bottom of the stairs with an amicable brush of shoulders. He would pretend that Mori was just his uncommonly generous landlord.

In the meantime, he dreamed of golden symphonies.

**Author's Note:**

> I am merely a sad queer American with limited knowledge of Japanese or British culture and vernacular, but I worked my absolute hardest on this. Sequel upcoming in which Mori introduces Thaniel to the art of rope bondage.


End file.
